ourselves, and so there’s a lot of energy that goes into being a TL and encouraging that team to do the ministries God has called them to do.

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How did God lead you to Leeds?

R: We were invited to come do university ministry in London. We took a group of students, explored London, realized London is a bit larger than we were used to, and so we said, “Is there another city that has a lot of students and not a lot of ministry?” And that’s when we landed in Leeds.

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How has support in the U. S. made a difference in your ministry?

T: The many individuals and churches encouraging us makes a huge difference. Financially, we’re able to hire stalls at festivals or do some kind of outreach with materials.

 

R: Some of these churches send emails, sometimes they call. That’s always encouraging to hear from people in the U.S., how they’re thinking about us. Because sometimes it can be a bit disconnecting. I appreciate the churches that make an effort to stay in touch with us.

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How can we pray for your ministry?

T: Pray for our university students to find God in the midst of their coursework.

 

R: Pray that the churches and Christians in Leeds and across North England would find a vision for reaching out, both within their workplace and their regular life, and also as churches planting more churches. We’re less than 1% evangelical, and we need more churches to engage in that.

 

T: Pray for our team, as we know the enemy seeks to discourage and devour our families. It’s spiritual warfare, and we definitely feel that here.

 

Pray for our friends and neighbors to hear the gospel.

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How can we pray for your family?

T: Our two kids are teenagers, and it’s really hard on them to be in high school. It can be really hard finding any friendships that really want to go talk about God.

 

R: In their day-in-day-out school, they’re alone, spiritually speaking. Youth groups are good, church friends are good, but that’s once or so a week.

 

For our family, it’s just finding a good rhythm with ministry. We want to get that time with our kids. In five years, both of them will be gone, and we don’t want to miss that opportunity.

 

T: The school system is quite pressured towards exams. As parents, how do we help encourage them? It’s a tough balance.

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Is there a story you’d like our supporters to know?

R: Something we’ve seen routinely is people saying, “I’ve never known a Christian I can ask this question; can I ask you?” And so we’ve been able to show them who God is, who Christ is, what it means to be a Christian, in a loving and safe environment. I’ve shared the gospel and my story with my barber, and he’s not quite there yet. But then last time, he was legitimately interested in what Christians think about pronouns and all of that. He was very curious and engaging.

 

T: Last term in one of our regular university student meetings, the student leader said, “I think a lot of people have questions, so would you mind if we just did question-and-answer?” About half of the students there didn’t know the Lord yet and had spiritual questions of all different kinds. At the end, the student leader led everyone through the Sinner’s Prayer. We actually think two of the students that night came to know the Lord. It was very exciting.

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In one word, describe how you feel about your current stage of ministry.

T: Diverse.

 

R: For a lot of years, we were in Colorado doing university ministry. We came here to do university, and within a couple of years God showed us that there’s a whole city here that needs saved, not just the university. And now we’ve moved to another part of the city, and so the city’s gotten bigger. And now we’re TLs, and so our view of the UK is spread out.

We’re diverse for multiplication. Because ultimately, whether it’s uni, whether it’s local church, whether it’s the different teams, our goal is to see multiplication happen. We want to see the gospel just moving beyond addition into each one of these areas.

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Watch a ministry update video here.